Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Cataloging & Technical Services

conference banner image

Libraries across the nation created and launched many Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives in recent years. These initiatives have been applied in all areas of the library, including cataloging and technical services. Attend this conference to see these efforts moving from proposal to practice. This Amigos Library Services online conference will examine EDI in action today in cataloging and technical services.

For more information about this conference, contact Jodie Borgerding, borgerding@amigos.org or (972)340-2897.

CST
Sessions
Session Links
Speaker(s)
10:00 am
Opening Keynote - The Five Embodiment's of Inclusive Library Science
Amber Billey
11:00 am
Break
 
 
11:15 am
Re-Thinking Dewey: Re-assigning Dewey Decimal Categories for Greater Equity and Discoverability
Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney
11:15 am
GLAMS Community Activism in Technical Services
Michelle Cronquist, Margaret Breidenbaugh, Violet Fox, Maya Espersen, Adam Schiff & Adrian Williams
11:15 am
Dropping the Other I-Word: Indigenous American Representation in a Network Library Catalog Through Local LCSH Replacements
Rebecca Saunders
12:00 pm
Lunch Break
 
 
1:15 pm
Diversity Audit: What Comes Next?
Amanda Oyama
1:15 pm
Transgender Reading Materials for Multiple Age Groups
Jordan Graham
1:15 pm
Inclusive Metadata Strategies at Max Chambers Library
Shay Beezley, Anona Earls & Kaitlyn Palone
2:00 pm
Break
 
 
2:15 pm
A New Librarian's Experience Creating EDI aware Collection Management Policies
Katherine Tennison
2:15 pm
Reparative Reclassification: Small Steps for Positive Change
Lisa Thornton, Melissa Hofmann & Yuji Tosaka
2:15 pm
African American Superheroes & Asexual Comics: Inclusive Comics Cataloging Practices
Deborah Tomaras, Allison Bailund, Steven Holloway & Kayla Kuni
3:00 pm
Break
 
 
3:15 pm
Whose authority? Applying a DEI Lens to Traditional Descriptive Practice
Laura Daniels, Jackie Magagnosc & Liz Parker
3:15 pm
A Collection for Everyone: Incorporating EDI Throughout the Collection Development Cycle
Jennifer Marshall, Anne Harris, Theresa Tittle & Meghan Hollingsworth
3:15 pm
Representing the Underrepresented: Local Collection Reflects the Values of Music Students and Faculty at the University of Tennessee
Kathryn Shepas, Nathalie Histrov, Chris Durman & Wanda Rosinski

Amber Billey portrait

Speaker: Amber Billey - Bard College - abilley@bard.edu
Session Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am CST

Session Title: Opening Keynote - The Five Embodiment's of Inclusive Library Science

Session Description: Inspired by S.R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science, Amber Billey, Systems and Metadata Librarian at Bard College will discuss inclusive library science practices and provide a framework for embodying these ethics in technical services. We can affect change within our libraries, institutions, communities, and the profession through mindfulness-based approaches, compassionate leadership, and advocacy.

Speaker Bio: Amber Billey is the Systems and Metadata Librarian at Bard College in beautiful Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Billey is the Chair of the Leadership Team for the ALA Core Metadata & Collection Section, and is Past-Chair of the Core Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Billey is a member of the PCC Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and was Chair of the PCC Ad Hoc Task Group on Recording Gender in Name Authority Records. She is the founder and member of the Open Cataloging Rules project. She is also on the Advisory Board for the Digital Transgender Archive, and the editorial board for the Homosaurus – a linked data thesaurus for the LGBTQ+ community. Billey received her MLIS from Pratt Institute in 2009 with certificates in Archives and Museum Librarianship. When she isn't thinking about metadata best practices and the future of libraries, Billey enjoys hiking in mountains, swimming in oceans, and sitting on meditation cushions.

Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney portrait

Speaker: Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney - Driftwood Public Library - kbrodbeck-kenney@lincolncity.org

Session Time: 11:15 am - 12:00 pm CST

Session Title: Re-Thinking Dewey: Re-assigning Dewey Decimal Categories for Greater Equity and Discoverability

Session Description: In 2022, Driftwood Public Library staff made the decision to move items pertaining to Black History, Women's history, LGBTQ+ history, and other underrepresented groups from the 300s to the 900s. This re-contextualizes the history of these groups as part of United States and world history, rather than sequestering them from the larger "history" collection

Speaker Bio: Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney is the director of Driftwood Public Library in Lincoln City, OR. They are also the ALA Chapter Councilor representing Oregon and have served as the Intellectual Freedom Chair and Public Library Division Chair for the Oregon Library Association, as well as chair of the ALA Rainbow Roundtable's "Over the Rainbow" committee. Their pronouns are they or she.

Michelle Cronquist portrait

Speaker: Michelle Cronquist - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - cronquim@email.unc.edu
Speaker: Margaret Breidenbaugh - Cincinnati State Technical and Community College - margarchivist@gmail.com
Speaker: Violet Fox - Northwestern University - violetfox@gmail.com
Speaker: Maya Espersen - Aurora Public Library - mesperse@auroragov.org
Speaker: Adam Schiff - University of Washington - aschiff@uw.edu
Speaker: Adrian Williams - Florida State University - adrian.d.williams@uky.edu

Session Time: 11:15 am - 12:00 pm CST

Session Title: GLAMS Community Activism in Technical Services

Adam L. Schiff portraitSession Description: A panel of GLAMS professionals will share their experiences with crowd-sourced, self-organized groups that are working to create more inclusive and representative description and discovery spaces for their communities.

The Gender & Sexuality SACO Funnel (Margaret Breidenbaugh, Maya Espersen, Adam L. Schiff) promotes and facilitates the creation and revision of authority records for Library of Congress-controlled vocabularies used in the cataloging of resources about, for, and by transgender, gender-diverse, intersex, asexual, and other queer, non-heteronormative or non-heterosexual people. Project goals: (1) improve access to gender- and sexuality-related resources; (2) reflect the terminology used by non-heteronormative and/or non-heterosexual communities; (3) create/revise terminology about personal relationships, especially terms that perpetuate or normalize cisgender and heterosexual perspectives and relationships as the standard.

The African American Subject Funnel Project (Michelle Cronquist) works to improve the Library of Congress-controlled vocabularies for terms reflecting the African American experience. In recent years the Funnel has established new LCSH terms including "Blackface" and "Great Migration, ca. 1914-ca. 1970" and worked on major changes to LCSH such as the change from "Blacks" to "Black people" and the change from "Slaves" to "Enslaved persons."

Maya Espersen portraitThe Trans Metadata Collective's Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources (Adrian Williams) is the result of a year of work and collaboration by a group of dozens of catalogers, librarians, archivists, scholars, and information professionals with a concerted interest in improving the bibliographic description of trans and gender diverse people in GLAMS (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Special Collections). The Collective's primary goal was to develop a set of best practices for the description, cataloging, and classification of information resources as well as the creation of metadata about trans and gender-diverse people, including authors and other creators.

The Queer Metadata Collective's best practices document (Adrian Williams), forthcoming in 2023, will run across similar but broader lines to the Trans Metadata Collective's work. It will be a set of best practices for the description, cataloging, and classification of information resources as well as the creation of metadata about gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender, intersex, Two-Spirit, and other people of marginalized sexualities and genders, including authors and other creators. The Queer Metadata Collective's work in putting together this documentation is currently in-progress.

Violet Fox portraitCataloging Lab (Violet Fox): In tandem with the work done by those in SACO Funnels, using the Cataloging Lab can help library workers better understand the research that is necessary to propose new or revised headings. Learn more about this wiki designed to make authority work more transparent and accessible to anyone who is interested.

Speaker Bio: Michelle Cronquist (she/her) is a Special Collections Cataloger at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been the Cataloging Co-Chair of the African American Subject Funnel Project since 2021 and has also participated in other efforts to make our catalogs more inclusive, including the Gender and Sexuality Funnel and the Trans Metadata Collective.

Speaker Bio: Margaret Breidenbaugh (she/her) is a Library Specialist at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, where she is in charge of resource sharing and evening circulation. She is also an MLIS student at Indiana University, where, as a member of the School of Informatics and Computing DEI Working Group, she will travel to Helsinki, Finland, this May to share research about ways that campus culture surveys can be more inclusive of online students. Margaret's areas of interest include critical cataloging, web accessibility, 18th- and 19th-century social history, written languages, orthography, and paleography.

Speaker Bio: Violet Fox (she/her) is a Cataloging and Metadata Librarian at Northwestern University's Galter Health Sciences Library. She has worked as a cataloger at several academic libraries, in addition to roles editing the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Sears List of Subject Headings. Her interests include zine librarianship, snail mail, and dreaming of a future without police.

Speaker Bio: Maya Espersen (she/her or they/them) has been the Cataloging Coordinator at the Aurora Public Library in Aurora, Colorado since October 2021. They received their MLIS in 2012 from the University at Albany, SUNY, and was briefly a Resource Sharing and Reserves Associate for the University from 2012 to 2015. They are one of three co-chairs for the Gender and Sexuality SACO Funnel. Their areas of interest include: inclusive language in metadata and description; graphic novels, comics, and manga; copy editing; and the evolution of fan culture in creative spaces.

Speaker Bio: Adam L. Schiff (he/him) has been the Principal Cataloger at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle, Washington since 1997. He has an M.L.I.S. from the University of California, Berkeley and an A.B. in biological sciences from Cornell University. He is the author of the SACO Participants' Manual and has given numerous workshops on SACO and on applying Library of Congress faceted vocabularies (LCGFT, LCDGT, etc.). Adam is a member of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging's Standing Committee on Standards, the ALA Core Subject Analysis Committee (SAC), and the North American RDA Committee (NARDAC).

Speaker Bio: Adrian Williams (they/them) received their MLS from Florida State University in 2018 and has been the Cataloging and Metadata Librarian at the University of Kentucky since January of 2020. Their research and service interests include critical cataloging and classification, and LGBTQ+ inclusive bibliographic description. They're a member of the Homosaurus Editorial Board, Trans Metadata Collective, Queer Metadata Collective, and the ALA Core Subject Analysis Committee. In their hours outside of work, they're active in local tenant organizing spaces.

Rebecca Saunders portrait

Speaker: Rebecca Saunders - Western Carolina University - rlsaunders@wcu.edu

Session Time: 11:15 am - 12:00 pm CST

Session Title: Dropping the Other I-Word: Indigenous American Representation in a Network Library Catalog Through Local LCSH Replacements

Session Description: The Western North Carolina Library Network, a consortium composed of the three westernmost University of North Carolina system schools, has begun systematically replacing problematic Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSHs) in our ILS since November 2021. We have prioritized several problematic headings for local replacement, but one of our major areas of focus has been replacing topical headings relating to Indigenous Americans. We began by compiling a list of all topical headings that include "the other 'I' word" in them and exploring several proposed alternatives for replacement terms. We arrived at “Indigenous American” as an appropriate replacement term based on internal discussions, reviewing the literature, and consulting with community representatives of the Eastern Band of Cherokee from the Museum of the Cherokee. We initiated a wholesale replacement of "I-word" terms with this provisional replacement term pending a more intensive research project to garner wider Cherokee community input on acceptable and appropriate terminology to be used in our controlled vocabularies. This presentation will provide an in-depth technical overview of our replacement procedure, which entails replacing subject authority records in the ILS and then running global updates to adjust the small percentage of terms that are not changed by authority record replacements. Alternative methods of local subject replacement will also be touched upon, as well as strategies for advocating for changes to the authorized vocabulary terms themselves.

Speaker Bio: Rebecca Saunders (she/her) is the Cataloging and Metadata Librarian at Western Carolina University's Hunter Library. She attained her MLIS degree through the University of South Carolina in 2019. Her primary interest in research and librarianship is in examining and rectifying how systems of oppression are codified in library catalogs through the practice of critical cataloging. Her co-written article detailing a workflow for local subject heading replacements in a shared network catalog, "Let's Get Technical – Network-Level Replacements of Problematic Library of Congress Subject Headings in Sierra," was published in the September 2022 issue of Against the Grain. When she is not cataloging, Rebecca enjoys reading fiction, watching horror movies, playing chess, taking in views of the beautiful mountains in western North Carolina, visiting her home in the South Carolina Lowcountry, and spoiling her two cats with the help of her husband.

Amanda Oyama portrait

Speaker: Amanda Oyama - Tulsa City County Library - aoyama@tulsalibrary.org

Session Time: 1:15 pm - 2:00 pm CST

Session Title: Diversity Audit: What Comes Next?

Session Description: You've completed a diversity audit of your collection, what happens now? Join the Tulsa City-County Library Collection Manager as she discusses her experience with auditing the collection, setting specific achievable goals, tracking orders and progress toward goals, and promoting best practices to branch staff.

Speaker Bio: Amanda Oyama graduated with her MLIS from the University of Oklahoma in 2004. She has 18 years of public library experience with the last 14 years in collection management. She is currently the Collection Manager at Tulsa City-County Library. She enjoys reading historical fiction and rom-coms. Her favorite projects include lots of data and excel spreadsheets.

Jordan Graham portrait

Speaker: Jordan Graham - Chattahoochee Technical College - jordan.graham@chattahoocheetech.edu

Session Time: 1:15 pm - 2:00 pm CST

Session Title: Transgender Reading Materials for Multiple Age Groups

Session Description: This session will present an analysis of the transgender reading materials that are often suggested for adults, juveniles, and young adults. It will also include examples of why finding good fiction material for adults can be difficult when using catalog searches. The main goal will be to encourage recommendations and displays that are well-informed and diverse instead of repeating the same nonfiction titles.

Speaker Bio: Jordan Graham is a librarian at Chattahoochee Technical College. He obtained his MLIS from the University of Illinois iSchool in 2022, where he focused his work on DE&I issues, specifically for the LGBTQ+ community. As a transgender person, his professional goal is to fill in the gaps of knowledge and history regarding transgender topics as they pertain to libraries and literature. He lives in the Atlanta area with his husband and their two spectacular cats.

Shay Beezley portrait

Speaker: Shay Beezley - University of Central Oklahoma - sbeezley@uco.edu
Speaker: Anona Earls - University of Central Oklahoma - aearls@uco.edu
Speaker: Kaitlyn Palone - University of Central Oklahoma - kpalone@uco.edu

Session Time: 1:15 pm - 2:00 pm CST

Session Title: Inclusive Metadata Strategies at Max Chambers Library

Session Description: Max Chambers Library is committed to serving underrepresented communities. One way this is accomplished is through the professional catalogers' dedication to accurately and respectfully describing materials relating to underrepresented communities. They are actively taking steps to ameliorate these problematic practices that directly affect the Central community's access to library resources. In this presentation, the catalogers will describe various projects undertaken in the areas of offensive/outdated terminology, issues in classification, and retroactively and actively adding inclusive language to records.

Kaitlyn Palone portraitSpeaker Bio: Shay Beezley, Assistant Director of Metadata & Cataloging, leads a team of six full-time catalogers and four student employees in ensuring the discoverability of library resources at the University of Central Oklahoma's Chambers Library. Her professional interests include MARC data remediation, ethics in cataloging and classification, and providing access to special collections and regional resources. Additionally, she serves in various leadership capacities for the Oklahoma Library Association and the Ex Libris Users of North America. She received her MSLS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Speaker Bio: Kaitlyn Palone received her MLIS from the University of Oklahoma in 2016. Soon after she began her position as Librarian, Metadata & Cataloging at the University of Central Oklahoma. When not working she enjoys spending time with her family and spoiled rotten cats.

Anona Earls portraitSpeaker Bio: Anona Earls is Librarian III/Coordinator of Deselection, Metadata & Cataloging at UCO Chambers Library. Her past eight years in this role has included original cataloging, supervising the library's interdepartmental deselection process, providing metadata expertise as a member of the library's Digital Initiatives Working Group, acting as collection development liaison for three academic departments, and supervising her department's student employees. Her professional interests within librarianship include cataloging, metadata, archives, and digital collections.

Katherine Tennison portrait

Speaker: Katherine Tennison - Southwestern Oklahoma State University - katherine.tennison@swosu.edu

Session Time: 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm CST

Session Title: A New Librarian's Experience Creating EDI aware Collection Management Policies

Session Description: I started working at the Southwestern Oklahoma University's Al Harris Library in August 2021. I quickly found out that the only weeding guidelines that have previously been used were completely outdated. However, that was not the only problem I ran into. There was a culture of keeping everything and unfortunately, as a result of this biased and outdated books were kept. Before I started some steps were taken to remove the more racist texts, but items were still being missed. This began my journey to create new policies that were EDI-aware.

Speaker Bio: From 2017 to 2021, Katherine Tennison worked at Rogers State University as the Acquisition Technician. During that time, she completed her MBA from Southern Nazarene University and her MLIS with a Graduate Certificate in Data Analytics for Information Professionals from the University of Oklahoma. She is currently the Collection Management and Technical Service Librarian for Southwestern Oklahoma State University Libraries. Katherine is fascinated by seeing correlations between seemingly divergent data sets and enjoys discovering new ways to determine how users interact with their library.

Lisa Thornton portrait

Speaker: Lisa Thornton - Seton Hall University - lisa.thornton1@shu.edu
Speaker: Melissa Hofmann - Rider University - mhofmann@rider.edu
Speaker: Yuji Tosaka - The College of New Jersey - tosaka@tcnj.edu

Session Time: 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm CST

Session Title: Reparative Reclassification: Small Steps for Positive Change

Session Description: The vital work to improve equity, diversity, and inclusion in cataloging and technical services is daunting yet imperative. In this session, librarians from New Jersey will share reclassification projects they implemented to address some of the biases inherent in standard library classification. Hofmann and Tosaka will present different approaches regarding the re-classification efforts for LC topical cutters that were based on the word "Negroes" -- a more manual approach at Rider and a bulk-updating approach at TCNJ. Thornton will discuss the implementation of DDC reclassification strategies in the 200s, 300s, and 900s at a public library. These projects highlight manageable, yet impactful ways librarians may begin the process to improve the description and classification of our collections.

Melissa A. Hofmann portraitSpeaker Bio: Lisa Thornton is the Acquisitions and Collections Librarian at Seton Hall University, NJ, where she oversees and manages all aspects of the life cycle of print and electronic library resources. Prior to assuming this role in the Fall of 2022, she was a Technical Services Librarian at a public library where she spearheaded multiple collection management projects including a re-classification of physical materials to improve inclusivity. Lisa is an active member of the New Jersey Library Association; she serves on the Professional Development Committee and is Past-President of the Technical Services and Collection Development Section.

Speaker Bio: Melissa A. Hofmann is Professor-Librarian at Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, where she manages bibliographic data, teaches information literacy, and is the liaison to several areas, including English and Gender & Sexuality Studies. Her research interests include issues of access and user understanding in libraries, especially in regard to subject analysis, metadata, and discovery, as well as narratives of gender and sexuality in literature, media, and fandom.

Yuji Tosaka portraitSpeaker Bio: Yuji Tosaka has worked as Cataloging/Metadata Librarian at The College of New Jersey since 2008. He also currently serves as the interim Head of Cataloging and Metadata. Yuji holds an MLIS degree from Kent State University, as well as a Ph.D. degree in history from The Ohio State University. Yuji has written and presented on various cataloging and metadata topics, such as professional continuing education, cataloging standards and practice, and the use and value of bibliographic data in library catalogs.

Deborah Tomaras portrait

Speaker: Deborah Tomaras - Marist College, James A. Cannavino Library - deborah.tomaras@marist.edu
Speaker: Allison Bailund - San Diego State University Library - abailund@sdsu.edu
Speaker: Steven Holloway - James Madison University Libraries - hollowsw@jmu.edu

Session Time: 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm CST

Session Title: African American Superheroes & Asexual Comics: Inclusive Comics Cataloging Practices

Session Description: In this presentation, we will discuss how the GNCRT Metadata and Cataloging Committee has sought to make comics cataloging more inclusive. From successfully proposing revisions to Library of Congress Subject Headings Manual Instruction H 1430 to advocating for more comprehensive subject headings and genres to reflect the diverse content of the medium, the Committee has endeavored to make comics cataloging more equitable with the cataloging of other formats and media.

Allison Bailund portraitSpecific examples include establishing a new pattern of subject headings for works of comics scholarship; proposing multiple subject headings to reflect the demographic diversity of superheroes; and proposing new comics genres, including genderqueer comics and manga (officially approved in November 2022!).

Speaker Bio: Deborah Tomaras is the Metadata and Resource Management Librarian at Marist College. She's currently the co-chair of the ALA Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable's Metadata & Cataloging Committee, and one of the inaugural coordinators for the NACO/SACO Comics and Fiction Funnel. She enjoys proposing terms to help better depict diversity in comics, including subjects like "Superheroes with disabilities" and genres like "Indigenous futurisms comics."

Steven W. Holloway portraitSpeaker Bio: Allison Bailund is a cataloging and acquisitions specialist at San Diego State University. She's currently the co-chair of the ALA GNCRT (Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable) Metadata & Cataloging Committee, chair of the CSU (California State University) ULMS (Unified Library Management System) Inclusive Description Task Force and one of the inaugural coordinators for the Comics and Fiction NACO and SACO Funnel.

Speaker Bio: Steven W. Holloway studied the Hebrew Bible and Assyriology at the University of Chicago and library science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was the founder and Chair of the Assyriology and the Bible Program Unit of the Society for Biblical Literature (2002-). His research interests include Neo-Assyrian religious imperialism, the reception history of the Bible and Assyriology in the nineteenth century, Orientalism, digital humanities, decolonizing library metadata, and comic book cataloging. He is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Metadata Strategies at James Madison University Libraries.

Laura Daniels portrait

Speaker: Laura Daniels - Cornell University Library / Library Technical Services - lew235@cornell.edu
Speaker: Jackie Magagnosc - Cornell University Library / Law Library - jkm95@cornell.edu
Speaker: Liz Parker - Cornell University Library / Kheel Center - eep63@cornell.edu

Session Time: 3:15 pm - 4:00 pm CST

Session Title: Whose Authority? Applying a DEI Lens to Traditional Descriptive Practice

Session Description: Many libraries are working to improve the descriptive metadata used in their catalogs and discovery systems. Large, controlled vocabularies and complex systems make this a daunting effort. Conversations amongst metadata practitioners across Cornell University Library units lead to the formation in 2021 of the Inclusive Descriptive Practice Task Force (IDPTF), a group dedicated to examining metadata practices and identifying methods to acknowledge the subjective nature of cataloging and archival descriptive practices. This session will give an overview of the formation, structure, and outputs of some of the subgroups in this task force, including examples of unexpected challenges and some successes thus far.Jackie Magagnosc portrait

Speaker Bio: Laura Daniels is the Assistant Director for Metadata Production at Cornell University Library.

Speaker Bio: Jackie Magagnosc is the Cataloging & Continuations Management Librarian at the Cornell University Law Library.

Speaker Bio: Liz Parker is the Technical Services Archivist at the Kheel Center in Catherwood Library at Cornell University. All three are members of the Library's Inclusive Descriptive Practices Task Force.


Liz Parker portrait

Jennifer Marshall portrait

Speaker: Jennifer Marshall - Pioneer Library System - jmarshall@pioneerlibrarysystem.org
Speaker: Thresa Tittle - Pioneer Library System - ttittle@pioneerlibrarysystem.org
Speaker: Meghan Hollingsworth - Pioneer Library System - mhollingsworth@pioneerlibrarysystem.org
Speaker: Anne Harris - Pioneer Library System - anne@pioneerlibrarysystem.org

Session Time: 3:15 pm - 4:00 pm CST

Session Title: A Collection for Everyone: Incorporating EDI Throughout the Collection Development Cycle

Session Description: EDI can be applied to every part of the Collection Development cycle including careful, conscious selection, cataloging with diverse subject headings, intentional weeding of the entire collection, and staff training.

Speaker Bio: Jennifer Marshall is the Collections Manager at the Pioneer Library System where she manages Technical Services and oversees the Delivery and ILL departments. She earned her Master of Library and Information Studies in 2006 from the University of Oklahoma. She has been working at Pioneer for over 20 years.

Anne Harris portraitSpeaker Bio: Meghan is a Children's Selector at Pioneer Library System. She has worked with Readers' Services since 2017. Meghan has her MLIS from the University of North Texas and her BS in Education from the University of Oklahoma. She has worked as a classroom teacher, a municipal librarian, and in collection development for a library system. Meghan has experience with children's collections, collection maintenance, intellectual freedom, and early literacy and school readiness initiatives.

Meghan Hollingsworth portraitSpeaker Bio: Anne earned her MLIS from the University of Oklahoma in 1992 and has worked as a Selector for 28 years at the Pioneer Library System. She, along with her co-workers, has developed and presented trainings on Intellectual Freedom and Weeding Collections for PLS staff.

Kathryn Shepas portrait

Speaker: Kathryn Shepas - University of Tennessee Knoxville - kshepas@utk.edu
Speaker: Nathalie Hristov - University of Tennessee Knoxville - mhristov@utk.edu
Speaker: Wanda Rosinski - University of Tennessee Knoxville - wrosinsk@utk.edu
Speaker: Chris Durman - University of Tennessee Knoxville - cdurman@utk.edu

Session Time: 3:15 pm - 4:00 pm CST

Session Title: Representing the Underrepresented: Local Collection Reflects the Values of Music Students and Faculty at the University of Tennessee

Session Description: A request by the University of Tennessee Knoxville Black Music Alliance and the UTK School of Music faculty to identify musical works by Black and Latinx composers prompted music library staff to come up with a way to easily find these works in the catalog. The creation of this specific collection required collaborations between the music library staff and the cataloging department, utilizing a model developed for the East Tennessee Music Collection promoting local musicians. The project developed in multiple stages: (a) evaluating the current music score collection; (b) identifying underrepresented groups and people within this collection; (c) making underrepresented works within this collection more accessible; and (d) planning for future acquisitions. Accessibility to this collection was optimized by first adding a local collection title for the UTK's catalog, and then adding composers' and performers' demographic group terms (LCDGT) in the MARC bibliographic records.

Nathalie Hristov portraitWhile there is no definitive way to identify all intellectual contributors with African and/or Latinx descent, there are encyclopedias such as the Latin American Index and the International Directory of Black Composers that facilitate these searches. Through these directories, student music library assistants searched the local catalog for works by these composers. Tagging these works with a collection title of Music by Black and Latinx Composers Collections has allowed users to search for music by these underrepresented composers within subsets of the collection. This URL shows a search capturing the collection title within the UT Collections catalog, tiny.utk.edu/4lDgm.

The ability to identify and access these works is of interest to performance faculty and students at UTK who have committed to learning, teaching, performing, and programming these works as part of the School of Music's Diversity Action Plan. What started as an isolated project led to an interdepartmental collaboration, spanning student workers and organizations, music library staff, and cataloging department staff. From the initial data collection, multiple collection development projects were generated to increase diversity and inclusion efforts amongst the score collection.

Wanda Rosinski portraitSpeaker Bio: Kathryn Shepas joined the George F. DeVine Music Library team in 2017 as the music library's first Graduate Student Library Assistant for outreach and engagement events. In 2019, she was hired as a supervisor for the music library where she managed a team of ten undergraduate and graduate student library assistants (SLAs). When working with SLAs, she focused on developing their information literacy skills through experiential learning and active engagement to prepare students for future careers or degree pursuits. She has project management skills that have led her student team to complete a variety of projects including the demographics project we will be speaking about in this presentation. Shepas has recently accepted a faculty appointment at the University of Tennessee as the Student Success for User Experience Librarian. She proudly holds a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance from West Virginia University and a Master of Music and Master of Science in Information Science from the University of Tennessee.

Chris Durman portraitSpeaker Bio: M. Nathalie Hristov has served as Associate Professor and Music Librarian at the University of Tennessee since 2005. Since 2009, Professor Hristov also serves as Exhibits Coordinator for the University of Tennessee Ready for the World Music Series. Her research on marketing music library services has been presented at national and international conferences including the national conference of the Music Library Association, and the International Association of Music Libraries. Her written works have been published by peer-reviewed journals, which include Music and Reference Services Quarterly, Technical Services Quarterly, Science and Technology Libraries, the Journal of Creative Library Practice, and Tennessee Libraries. She is also on the board and has served as Secretary of HoLa Hora Latina, a non-profit organization that promotes Hispanic culture and heritage throughout East Tennessee.

Speaker Bio: Wanda Rosinski is an original and copy cataloger at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) Library. She earned her master's degree in Polish Philology from the University of Wrocław, Poland. After graduation, Wanda worked in the Institute of Geography Library at the University of Wrocław, Poland. She came to the United States in 1983 and began working for the UTK Library in 1986. She first worked in the Acquisitions Department and then moved to the Cataloging Department in 1988. Wanda became a U.S. Citizen in 1995. While working full-time, she earned her M.S. Degree in Information Sciences in 2010. Wanda’s specialty, besides cataloging music, is in Slavic and French language materials, batch loading of electronic resources, and cataloging monographic e-books. Wanda is also a NACO cataloger for the NACO Tennessee Funnel. She creates authority records for personal and corporate names. She received a Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) 2018 Ralph Papakhian Travel Grant to attend the MOUG Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon on January 30-31, 2018. At the request of library staff across several departments within the University of Tennessee Libraries Wanda Rosinski began offering a series of training sessions for working with and supporting music collections. In 2022, Rosinski shared her experience offering music training of library staff at the Music OCLC Users Group conference held online, and at the International Association of Music Libraries Congress in Prague, Czech Republic her poster was presented by Nathalie Hristov.

Speaker Bio: Chris Durman is an associate professor and coordinator of the George F. DeVine Music Library at the University of Tennessee. He has been an active member of regional and national music library associations, having served—among other positions—as president of the East Tennessee Library Association and chair of the Southeast Chapter of the Music Library Association. He has published in Tennessee Libraries, Music Reference Services Quarterly, and Notes; taught workshops on music reference and music collection development; and presented to various professional organizations.